“It is the only compound expression I can use to describe the discontented humour in which the upper classes of English society exist to-day,” replied Sir Walter. “For many years the soul of England has been held in chains by men whose thoughts are all of Self,—the honour of England has been attainted by women whose lives are moulded from first to last on Self. To me, personally, England is everything,—I have no thought outside it—no wish beyond it. Yet I am as ashamed of some of its leaders of opinion to-day, as if I saw my own mother dragged in the dust and branded with infamy!”
“You speak of your Government?” began the Queen.
“No, Madam,—I have no more quarrel with my country’s present Government than I could have with a child who is led into a ditch by its nurse. It is a weak and corrupted Government; and its actual rulers are vile and abandoned women.”
The Queen’s eyes opened in a beautiful, startled wonderment;—this man’s clear, incisive manner of speech interested her.
“Women!” she echoed, then smiled; “You speak strongly, Sir Walter! I have certainly heard of the ‘advanced’ women who push themselves so much forward in your country, but I had no idea they were so mischievous! Are they to be admired? Or pitied?”
“Pitied, Madam,—most sincerely pitied!” returned Sir Walter;—“But such misguided simpletons as these are not the creatures who rule, or play with, or poison the minds of the various members who compose our Government. The ‘advanced’ women, poor souls, do nothing but talk platitudes. They are perfectly harmless. They have no power to persuade men, because in nine cases out of ten, they have neither wit nor beauty. And without either of these two charms, Madam, it is difficult to put even a clever cobbler, much less a Prime Minister, into leading strings! No,—it is the spendthrift women of a corrupt society that I mean,—the women who possess beauty, and are conscious of it,—the women who have a mordant wit and use it for dangerous purposes—the women who give up their homes, their husbands, their children and their reputations for the sake of villainous intrigue, and the feverish excitement of speculative money-making;—with these—and with the stealthy spread of Romanism,—will come the ruin of my country!”
“So grave as all that!” said the Queen lightly;—“But, surely, Sir Walter, if you see ruin and disaster threatening so great an Empire in the far distance, you and other wise men of your land are able to stave it off?”
“Madam, I have no power!” he returned bitterly. “Those who have thought and worked,—those who are able to see what is coming by the light of past experience, are seldom listened to, or if they get a hearing, they are not seldom ridiculed and ‘laughed down.’ Till a strong man speaks, we must all remain dumb. There is no real Government in England at present, just as there is no real Church. The Government is made up of directly self-interested speculators and financiers rather than diplomatists,—the Church, for which our forefathers fought, is yielding to the bribery of Rome. It is a time of Sham,—sham politics, and sham religion! We have fallen upon evil days,—and unless the people rise, as it is to be hoped to God they will, serious danger threatens the glory and the honour of England!”
“Would you desire revolution and bloodshed, then?” enquired the Queen, becoming more and more interested as she saw that this Englishman did not, like most of his sex, pass the moments in gazing at her in speechless admiration,—“Surely not!”
“I would have revolution, Madam, but not bloodshed,” he replied;—“I think my countrymen are too well grounded in common-sense to care for any movement which could bring about internal dissension or riot,—but, at the same time, I believe their native sense of justice is great enough to resist tyranny and wrong and falsehood, even to the death. I would have a revolution—yes—but a silent and bloodless one!”